Medium-sized wealthy states -middle powers -and global civil society networks are increasingly joining forces to influence the global policy agenda on issues of international law, justice, humanitarianism and development. These middle power-NGO coalitions use the comparative advantages of both state and nonstate actors in synergistic partnerships. States represent the coalitions' interests in international negotiations and conferences, provide donor funding and offer diplomatic support. For their part, NGOs gather on-the-ground research, provide technical expertise, lobby governments, mobilise public opinion and generate media publicity. This article uses the case of the campaign to ban cluster munitions, culminating in the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, to examine the organisation, efforts and impact of such middle power-NGO coalitions.

This article will show how trends of globalization have transformed both the proliferation of and efforts to control small arms and light weapons (SALW). We first examine how the distribution of small arms has become more diffused, moving away from a state‐centric model of ‘arms transfers’ to circulations of SALW through outsourced networks comprising a myriad of public and private actors. We then show how the post‐Cold War international environment has allowed progressive norm entrepreneurs like middle powers and NGOs greater voice in determining SALW policy. Simultaneously, however, it has also allowed great power states and defense companies to benefit from the legitimacy of associating with human rights groups, ‘capturing’ the SALW policy process, particularly the Arms Trade Treaty, in a way that protects their interests. Efforts to transfer, exchange and control small arms and light weapons are thus indicative of wider global political processes in which power is diffused through multilayered networks and complexes. Exploring the policy implications, we argue that these networks enable actors to augment their power and capacity through alliances with other agents, but simultaneously constrain their scope of action and ability to control the process. This makes it more difficult for actors representing the public interest to override those acting in private or particularist interests. Policy Implications Globalization makes it more difficult for those making policy in the public interest to constrain and resist capture by private interests, or to control the direction of the process when there are many actors involved. Therefore:  Global policy success requires a thorough understanding of how to navigate and operate in multilevel, multi‐actor, multinational and multi‐scale networks.  Global policy makers and activists need to become increasingly familiar with operating strategically in networks and complexes of public and private actors, selecting allies and contractors who share values and interests that are consistent with the intended policy outcomes.  A smaller, more coherent campaign network can sometimes be more effective and mobilize more strategically than a broad‐based, diffused coalition.  Rather than focusing simply on state‐centric treaties, global policy making around multifaceted issues like SALW proliferation may be better served by created multilayered ‘regime complexes’, incorporating a network of mutually reinforcing institutions, norms, treaties, programs, embargoes and campaigns.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has aimed to reenergize global civil society activism on nuclear weapons through a discursive strategy, borrowing self‐consciously from critical and post‐positivist international relations (IR) theories. ICAN aims to generate a new disarmament discourse that establishes nuclear weapons as inherently inhumane. Alongside the state‐led Humanitarian Initiative, ICAN campaigners are helping to reshape the conversation at certain international meetings on nuclear weapons. They have helped to contest the dominance of national security narratives and force even the nuclear‐armed states to address the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. In supporting a reframing of the conversation, they have opened nuclear disarmament policy making to new voices. However, as with the transmission of many ideas from one arena to another – in this case from academia to global policy making forums – there is a translation process as ICAN campaigners selectively adopt from post‐positivist IR to meet their political goals. It is possible that this translation of critical theorizing into the setting of multilateral forums has necessitated reducing the potency of the disruptive critique of the original ideas.

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The use and testing of nuclear weapons caused transnational and catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences. Legacies of more than 2,000 nuclear detonations in the territories of 15 states persist today, with serious implications for human rights and sustainable development. There is an inadequate global policy architecture for addressing the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons. However, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), adopted by 122 states at the UN in 2017, established obligations to assist victims of nuclear weapons and testing and remediate contaminated environments. Other global policymaking bodies have also mandated action on such concerns. In this review article, introducing a Special Section on ‘Addressing the Humanitarian and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear Weapons’, we provide a global overview of the facts about past nuclear weapons activities in different countries and some of the known and potential ongoing consequences of the blast, heat and radioactive energy released by past nuclear weapons detonations. In doing so, we aim to inform the development of policy around the TPNW and the gathering of further relevant information, enabling efforts to develop global humanitarian, human rights and sustainable development policy assisting communities affected by nuclear weapons.